'Imperialism on the brain': Trump defenders dismiss 'expansionist' rhetoric as 'saber-rattling'

27 December 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has often been described as an "isolationist," and some political journalists, including Jeff Greenfield, have compared him to Patrick Buchanan — as his MAGA movement often echoes the "America First" themes of Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign.

Buchanan himself hasn't been shying about praising Trump's foreign policy, which he views as a welcome departure from the hawkish neoconservatism of the George W. Bush Administration.

According to some critics, however, Trump's recent comments on Panama and Greenland have sounded imperialistic. And the president-elect's defenders and allies, Politico's Myah Ward reports, are arguing that his rhetoric on those countries shouldn't be taken seriously.

Ward, in an article published on December 27, explains, "Donald Trump is heading into 2025 with imperialism on the brain. Since his November victory, the president-elect has suggested the U.S. should own Greenland, annex Canada and reclaim the Panama Canal — an expansionist air he doubled down on in a spree of Truth Social posts on Christmas Day. But if Trump's overtures are evidence that his America First policy agenda may have an interventionist component, they also served as an early reminder of how the incoming president conducts foreign policy: lots of threats, confusion, freewheeling and a dose of unpredictability."

Trump's defenders, according to Ward, are dismissing his comments on Greenland and the Panama Canal as mere "saber-rattling."

GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett, who served in Trump's first administration, told Politico, "I was there at the State Department when a tweet would be issued, and then, every intellectual in the building had to somehow figure out if there's any logical sense to this and policy to this and if there's any upside…. But from a foreign policy context, crazy worked just fine the first time.”

Ward points out, however, that Trump's "freewheeling nature" has "also spelled trouble for his administration in the past."

The Politico reporter explains, "Trump regularly used Twitter during his first term to issue nuclear threats against countries or orders to the military — a habit that spurred chaos and confusion throughout the ranks of command. His latest threats, while undermining any notion that Trump is an isolationist, appear to be a mix of serious intention, intimidation tactics and possibly even some trolling."

Read the full Politico article at this link.

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